Modern Guild is helping prepare students for college and their careers

Concept: An online platform that connects high school and college students with mentors. In either an eight- or ten-week course, students must meet with their mentors and participate in customized career-building exercises.

Why You Should Care: Preparing for life is just as important as preparing for college. That's why Modern Guild helps high school students prepare for college, and helps college students prepare for the working world.

Why You Should Care: Blue Apron helps people discover the joy of cooking by removing all the friction from the process except the clean up. It sends you ingredients for three meals per week, along with seasonal recipes from top chefs.

PopTip harnesses information from social networks to give you crowdsourced news

Why You Should Care: PopTip is aiming to make feedback more transparent and easier to sort through for brands and marketers. It's an incredibly powerful tool for brands to figures out what their customers are interested in.

BarkBox is trying to make life better for dogs and easier for their owners

Why You Should Care: Bark Box is blossoming into both an e-commerce and content company, one VC tells us. It already has thousands of monthly subscribers and has partnered with Groupon and LivingSocial to continue to fuel its growth. It's also in talks with major pet brands to form partnerships like, "Buy two boxes of milk bones, get a free BarkBox."

Grouper is trying to make dating less awkward

Concept: Grouper sets up casual meetups or dates between two groups of friends.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: $400K from Y Combinator

Why You Should Care: Most datings sites, though Grouper is technically a "social club," can be pretty awkward. Grouper, though technically a "social club" aims to get rid of that awkwardness by providing a platform that doesn't take you too far out of your comfort zone. Since launching last year, Grouper has expanded its offerings into ten new cities.

Why You Should Care: littleBits is helping spark the creativity in children. Children can get the physical experience of building, while also learning about art and technology. littleBits are like the toys of the future, one VC tells us.

Why You Should Care: Joyride's clientsalready include some of the biggest names in the New York tech scene, like Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Gilt, and Buzzfeed. Joyride is also cheaper per cup than K-cups.

Social Bicycle makes it super easy to find a bike and helps save the environment at the same time

Concept: Bike-sharing program for cities that lets you rent and unlock bicycles using a smartphone app.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: N/A

Why You Should Care: Bikes can be the easiest way to quickly get from one place to another, especially if you're living in a city like New York where traffic can be rough. But it's not always ideal to actually own a bike, so that's where Social Bicycles comes in. The system will help the environment while also mobilizing city dwellers.

Namely helps ad agencies and other businesses retain talent

Funding: $1.75 million in total from investors including Mike Lazerow, Michael Barrett, Lerer Ventures, and Bullpen Capital

Why You Should Care: Ad agencies are constantly struggling to figure out how to attract and retain talent. But with Namely, organizations can track employee performance, team dynamics, and company growth in real-time.

Jukely is a personal concert concierge

Concept: Jukely is a personal live music concierge that learns from you and your friends' music tastes to make show recommendations.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: N/A

Why You Should Care: It can be really hard to find out about shows you're interested in before it's too late. So it curates and notifies you of upcoming shows happening nearby. Since it has deals in place with promoters and venues, Jukely can get you on the guest list and all you have to do is show up.

Its co-founder Bora Celik has an impressive background in the music industry, having spent nine years as a concert organizer.

Why You Should Care: You shouldn't have to delve deep into code just to make a website for a one-time event like a birthday, concert, or graduation party. Splash also offers event planning tools to help you manage your guest list and RSVPs. Splash isn't totally new, but since they rebranded, they've been seeing strong traction, one investor told us.

Floored lets you map and internal space and render it in 3D properties

Why You Should Care: Floored is trying to make it easier for property owners to show off their offices, homes, and event spaces. With Floored, property owners can save a lot of time because instead of setting up several different showings, they can just direct interested buyers to the iPad app.

Hullabalu is building a storytelling platform for kids on the iPad

Why You Should Care: Hullabulu has an impressive founder who is "focused on magic," Michael Levitt, a managing partner at Founders Den wrote on AngelList. Another investor says it's perfectly poised to "undermine a huge industry."

Why You Should Care: Bondsy hasn't even launched yet, but it's already secured funding. It's arguably a safer version of Craigslist since only the people connected to you can see what you're selling. It also doesn't require a cash-only exchange, meaning you could offer to "sell" a bike in exchange for a dinner on the buyer's dime.

Flint and Tinder is another startup going after the mens underwear space

Condition One is changing the way we watch video

Concept: Augmented reality iOS app that immerses you in a video by giving you a 180-degree field of vision.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: $2.35 million from TechStars, Mark Cuban, and George Kliavkoff.

Why You Should Care: Condition One is the brainchild of photojournalist and Academy Award winner Danfung Dennis. It promises to change the way you watch video and consume news events by totally immersing you in it.

Why You Should Care: Many startups have attempted to solve the overabundance of content issue through social, but these founders are especially adept to fix it because of their experience with building online communities, Y Combinator partner Garry Tan wrote on AngelList.

Qnary helps you understand and manage your digital footprint

Concept: Platform to help you manage your online identity. Qnary works by first having you enter your name, along with a few potential keywords your name might be associated with, like "Megan Dickey" and "Business Insider," for example. The next step is to connect your social networks, either LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, but it's best to connect all three to get the full picture of your online identity. Qnary then helps you optimize how you look online.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: N/A

Why You Should Care: How you appear online has become more important today than it ever has before, especially if you're looking for a job. Most job recruiters, 86%, look at a candidate's social media profile and respond negatively to things like profanity, sexually inappropriate tweets or posts, and grammatical errors, according to a Jobvite survey. That's why Qnary helps you see, manage and optimize how you appear online and in public searches.

Bant Breen is a long-time advertising executive who recently left the business to start his own venture. Since maintaining your personal brand online is a form of advertising, Breen seems like just the right guy to tackle the digital footprint space.

OneBeat is tapping into the $4 billion electronic dance music industry

Concept: Media platform for electronic dance music. For consumers, OneBeat is an online video channel that broadcasts electronic dance music content and news both on its own platform and via YouTube. For advertisers, OneBeat offers them one place to reach electronic dance music fans.

OneBeat has already teamed up with popular EDM acts including Steve Aoki, Fedde Le Grand, and Digitalism to create original content and events for its YouTube channel. OneBeat also recently partnered with Microsoft to create an EDM app for Xbox LIVE.

TaxiTreats puts vending machines in taxi cabs

Concept: A mini vending machine with things like energy drinks, snack bars, and gum, would be attached in the backseat of the cab near the taxi's TV to let you munch on some goodies will you navigate through the city. At the end of the trip, the food you ate would be added to your taxi fare.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: $17,500 from the Next Idea competition, hosted by NY's Economic Development Corporation in partnership with Columbia University's School of Engineering

Why You Should Care: TaxiTreats could totally change your taxi cab experience in New York city, pending approval by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. TaxiTreats would not only improve the experience of the passenger, but also bring in more revenue for taxi owners.

Why You Should Care: Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt have a pretty impressive track record, having already created two successful Kickstarter campaigns for The Cosmonaut, a marker-like tool for touchscreens, and The Glif, a tripod for the iPhone. It's absolutely gorgeous, John Gruber of Fireball recently wrote on his blog.

While this app is specific to March, we bet Provost and Gerhardt will have more up their sleeves in the months to come.

BONUS: RapGenius helps people figure out what rap songs really mean

Concept: Lyrics site that explains the meaning of the words behind rap songs.

Location: New York, NY

Funding: $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz and an undisclosed amount from Lerer Ventures.

Why You Should Care: While Rap Genius isn't an early stage startup,its founders have ambitious goals to make RapGenius the number one website in the world. It's already one of the most-visited lyrics sites in the world.

RapGenius also recently launched a new site called Poetry Brain. Instead of explaining rap lyrics, Poetry Brain breaks down the meaning behind literature and poetry, and even things like Pope Benedict's resignation announcement, and scripts from the television show The Wire.